In the manufacture of incandescent and fluorescent lamps, filament coils are mounted to the filament coil supports on what is known in the trade as a mount machine. Filament coils are generally delivered to the mount machine by means of a well-known and conventional waking beam.
This invention is directed to the delivery of filament coils to the walking beam for subsequent delivery to the mount machine. In the past, some systems have employed vibratory bowl feed means to deliver the coils individually to the walking beam from bulk storage in the vibratory bowls. It is important that sufficient coils be delivered to the walking beam in a specifically spaced sequence in order that a filament coil is available for each stem and support wire combination reaching the filament mount position on the mount machine. When the stem and support wires are present and no coil is delivered both time and materials can be lost. In a single-bowl feed even if 95% of the time a coil is available for delivery, five out of every one-hundred stems will not receive a filament coil. By employing duplicate vibratory bowl feeds and alternating the feed, although machine speed can be increased, there will be still five coils generally missing out of every one-hundred stems needing a filament coil.
By employing the sensing and detecting system of this invention along with the included switching circuit, coils will be delivered to the walking beam upon demand from the mount machine effectively 100% of the time and mount shrinkage will thereby be considerably reduced.